Gravity Payments will raise the salaries of
Gravity Payments will raise the salaries of "even the lowest-paid clerk, customer service representative, and salesman" to $70,000. Vereshchagin Dmitry/Shutterstock

What If the Minimum Wage Was $34 an Hour? It now is at the Seattle-based credit card payment processing company Gravity Payments, where the owner told his employees yesterday he'd increase all salaries in the company to $70,000 over the next three years.

A Guy Successfully Sat in a Tree Until City Light Agreed to Not Cut It Down: This is all you need to know: "Munching on a turkey sandwich packed by his wife watching a caterpillar inch by and admiring a jumble of branches that reminded the 59-year-old of a Salvador Dali sculpture, [Jim] Davis surveyed bulldozers carrying out their work below," write Daniel Beekman and Coral Garnick at the Seattle Times. "He achieved his goal Monday morning when Seattle City Light workers arrived to talk him down with the promise that the pine wouldn’t be immediately axed. 'They’re going to look at the tree again, and I feel good about that,' Davis said."

Shell’s First Drilling Rig Gets to Washington on Friday, but Won't Get to Seattle for a While: Probably the end of April or sometime in May. In preparation for a possible "flotilla of kayaks" full of activists ready to meet the drilling rigs, the Coast Guard is planning to announce "safety zones" around the fleet. We'll learn more about what those look like today.

One vision of a viaduct collapse during an earthquake. Print and color!
One vision of a viaduct collapse during an earthquake. Print and color! HAWK KRALL

So, the Viaduct Is Safe. What Does That Even Mean? The city council still can't seem to get normal human-speak answers from the Washington State Department of Transportation about when the viaduct will be too unsafe. Except, of course, when there's an earthquake. Sydney Brownstone reports.

The New Yorker Wrote About Bertha: And how often megaprojects are total clusterfucks.

A Young Family Died After a Chunk of Overpass Fell onto Their Truck in Bonney Lake: This is just the worst. "A large piece of a concrete barrier from a sidewalk construction project on SR 410 fell onto a moving occupied truck on Angeline Street," KING 5 reports. "Authorities initially reported one person died, but later confirmed the young couple and their baby were killed in the accident."

An airport worker fell asleep in the cargo hold of an Alaska Airlines flight bound for Los Angeles.
An airport worker fell asleep in the cargo hold of an Alaska Airlines flight bound for Los Angeles. Digital Media Pro/Shutterstock

"The Passengers in First Class Heard Banging from Underneath Us and a Person Yelling for Help." A worker fell asleep in the cargo hold of an Alaska Airlines flight on its way from Seattle to Los Angeles yesterday. Once air marshals and flight attendants on board realized he was there, the captain flew back to Sea-Tac, and the worker appeared to be okay. "The banging continued for quite a while we were circling," a passenger told KING 5. "Air marshals banged back down trying to communicate with the person in the hold and yelling down that we were going to be landing."

James Keblas Has Dropped Out of His City Council Race: It's been less than a month since Keblas, the former director of the Office of Film + Music, announced he was running for one of the two citywide seats, but he's already out. In a statement yesterday, he said he would continue advocating for more city arts funding, PubliCola reports.

Seattle Department of Transportation Is Installing New "Smart" Parking Meters: That means prices will change depending on the time of day and hopefully your card won't get stuck in the machine anymore.

Senator Brian Hatfield (D-Raymond): Beef Day master of ceremonies.
Senator Brian Hatfield (D-Raymond): Beef Day master of ceremonies. Washington State Senate Democrats video

Everyone's Favorite Day in the Legislature: We can't believe we missed this last week. The state legislature had its annual Beef Day, during which the Washington Cattlemen's Association cooks up free tri-tip sandwiches for a bunch of lawmakers, staff, and lobbyists. Previous years' videos have had a sandwich cam, a drone, and a Seahawks theme. This year it's a half-baked Game of Thrones parody ("Game of T-Bones"). You're welcome!

Paid Parental Leave Finally Happened! It's only four weeks and it's only for city employees—not the private sector—but this is still a big deal for families and for closing the gender wage gap. City council member Jean Godden, who led the push for this new policy, called it a "momentous day for our city."

It's Your Last Day to Apply to Be on the City Council: It's a fill-in job through the end of the year.


Everybody's Looking at California: A marijuana legalization measure is expected on the ballot there in 2016. Given the sheer scale legalization in that state would represent—more than twice as many residents as Colorado, Washington, Alaska, and Oregon combined—"success or failure is likely to determine whether most of the country decriminalizes the drug for recreational use," according to Bloomberg. Time to get your shit together, California!